Elections

That’s the hope at the restaurant Maxim’s in Paris, which recently started a new chapter after 130 years in business.Anya Firestone’s job as a luxury tour guide in Paris has brought her to many rarefied corners of the city. But only recently did she do something that countless locals and visitors have done over the last 130 years: Book a reservation at Maxim’s, the storied French restaurant that opened in 1893 and has counted Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, Margrethe II of Denmark, Jean Cocteau, Jane Birkin and Man Ray among its patrons.“The place was packed,” Ms. Firestone, 35, said of the night she ate there in late November. “There was energy — the ghosts of Maxim’s are probably happy.”Ms. Firestone, who has lived in Paris off and on since 2010, hadn’t tried to dine there sooner because the restaurant fell “off my radar,” she said, partly because she wasn’t aware if it was still functioning as a restaurant. She was not alone in that perception.“Many people, even most, did not realize it was open as a restaurant,” said Pierre Pelegry, a director at Maxim’s who has worked there for 27 years and was hired by Pierre Cardin, the French fashion designer, after he bought the restaurant in 1981.The focus at Maxim’s in recent years had shifted to private events, Mr. Pelegry said, and for a while it was open to diners only from Wednesdays through Saturdays. It resumed daily bookings in November, two months after the Paris Society, a French hospitality group, took over operations as part of a deal with the Cardin family. (Mr. Cardin died in 2020; his heirs have since been entangled in a battle over his estate.)Musicians performed at a pre-wedding party that Alexa Buckley Roussel and Alexandre Roussel hosted at Maxim’s in September. The restaurant’s ground floor has a small stage. Emilie WhiteWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber?  More

The company California Forever began collecting signatures last week for a ballot initiative that would essentially ask residents for permission to build.Solano County, the site of the proposed new city.Aaron Wojack for The New York TimesResidents of Rio Vista, an agricultural town of 10,000 near the edge of Solano County, have been captivated for most of the last six years by one question: Who was buying up all the farmland?It appeared to be a little-known company called Flannery Associates, which by last year had become the largest landowner in the county. Residents speculated on its purpose: Some thought it could be a cover for foreign spies; others believed it was a shell company acquiring property for a new Disneyland.But even after investigations by the county and federal agencies, nobody could learn anything about the company’s owners or true intentions.The veil lifted in August, when my colleague Erin Griffith and I revealed that the purchases were being directed by a former Goldman Sachs trader named Jan Sramek, who wanted to build a city of up to 400,000 people on what is now rolling yellow farmland, where families have raised sheep and cattle for generations.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber?  More

After offering his brother lodging for his course of radiation therapy, the man informed him — with one day’s notice — that the invitation was contingent on an apology for a long-forgotten letter.My sister’s husband was diagnosed with prostate cancer last year. Along with his oncologist, he consulted frequently with his twin brother, who is a doctor. They decided he should have surgery, and then an eight-week course of specialized radiation that is available only at a handful of hospitals. His twin lives near one of them, and he invited my brother-in-law to stay with him and his wife in their large home for eight weeks. The day before my brother-in-law was set to drive there, his twin called and said he could stay with them only if he apologized to his wife for a letter he wrote 30 years earlier, shortly after his son died. (My brother-in-law doesn’t remember this letter or anyone referring to it before.) His twin said: “I have to choose between you and my marriage.” My brother-in-law says he understands, but my sister is heartbroken for him. Doesn’t the twin have to keep his word and let his brother stay at his house?SISTERAren’t you overlooking a simpler solution than a showdown over forced houseguests? Your brother-in-law could tell his brother’s wife that he has no memory of the letter. (It was written decades ago, after all, during a painful period in his life.) Still — and this is the important part — he could also say that, if she is willing to discuss the issue, he will certainly apologize for any hurt he caused.I understand your focus on your sister’s distress. She’s your sister! But neither illness nor prior invitation voids a person’s right to decide who will stay in her home. And it would be a mistake, in my view, to insist that medical treatment or the passage of time requires people to bury deeply held feelings.Now, we can quibble over what should have happened 30 years ago and how we may prioritize these issues differently. But it’s often wise to take people up on their suggestions about how to resolve conflicts with them. Here, a woman has asked for an apology. If your brother-in-law can make one sincerely, that seems like the best way to secure his lodging and heal his relationship with his sister-in-law, no?Miguel PorlanWhat to Ask Yourself Before ‘Shouldn’t She Be in School?’My husband and I pay a woman to clean our home every Thursday morning. She does a great job, and we are pleased with her services. The problem: For the past few months, she has brought her young daughter (who seems to be in her early teens) to help her. My husband thinks we should ask why the girl is not in school, but I think the question is invasive and may make our cleaner — an immigrant of uncertain legal status — uncomfortable. Thoughts?S.The Supreme Court held, over 40 years ago, that any child living in the United States is entitled to a free public education, regardless of his or her legal status. Still, there can be tremendous practical and emotional barriers to enrolling a child who is undocumented in school: language issues, for instance, or feelings of vulnerability. If you and your husband want to help your cleaner send her daughter to school, which I applaud, go for it! Otherwise, why are you asking?Putting a Son’s Surliness Into PerspectiveMy husband and I have lived across the street from an elderly couple for seven years. We maintained a friendly relationship with them until six months ago, when their son (who does not live with them) antagonized us and then threatened my husband. He later apologized halfheartedly, but the collateral damage is that we cut off contact with our neighbors. Now, the husband has died, and we don’t know how to handle condolences or whether to attend his memorial service. Advice?NEIGHBORSQuestion for you: Why do you think the fractious son apologized at all? Probably because his parents asked him to out of respect for your friendship. You haven’t shared the details of your confrontation, and I understand your reluctance to have anything to do with the son.But your friendly neighbor has just lost her husband. Of course you should make a condolence call and ask if you may attend his memorial service. Have compassion — and perspective! This woman’s loss dwarfs your squabble with her son.I Got In! So Why Do I Feel Like This?In December, I learned that I was admitted, early action, to my first-choice college. At first, I was stoked. Then I started to feel bad: Many of my friends, who worked just as hard as I had, didn’t get good news. And since Christmas break, I’ve started to feel let down — like the achievement I thought was going to make me feel like a rock star isn’t doing it for me. Do you think this is weird?SENIORFirst, congratulations on your admission! I know the competition is fierce and your hard work was probably substantial. As for the evolution of your feelings, they are totally natural (in my experience): You are more than your accomplishments, and your friends are more than their disappointments. If I were you, I would set aside the college question for a minute and focus on your connections with friends and others in your community. They will often be more nourishing than achievements.For help with your awkward situation, send a question to [email protected], Philip Galanes on Facebook or @SocialQPhilip on the platform X. More

Subscribe to Popcast!Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Amazon MusicLast week, Condé Nast announced that Pitchfork, the taste-making music news and criticism website it had acquired in 2015 — which had entranced and sometimes infuriated fans for more than two decades — would be brought under the editorial umbrella of GQ. Many staffers were laid off.The announcement felt like a death knell for a certain kind of critical posture — progressive but not inaccessible, knowledgeable but also curious — that feels increasingly remote in the current media landscape. Some version of the site will continue, but online, the news was received with dismay and frustration.On this week’s Popcast, a conversation with two of the people responsible for building the site’s editorial and business operations about what it took to develop the company from a one-person organization to a cross-platform publication and festival business, and the challenges that led to its sale to Condé Nast.Guests:Ryan Schreiber, the founder of Pitchfork and its editor in chief for approximately two decadesChris Kaskie, Pitchfork’s first employee and first CEOConnect With Popcast. Become a part of the Popcast community: Join the show’s Facebook group and Discord channel. We want to hear from you! Tune in, and tell us what you think at [email protected]. Follow our host, Jon Caramanica, on Twitter: @joncaramanica. More

The site in southeastern China housed an internet cafe and an educational center, state media said.A fire in a commercial building in southeastern China killed at least 39 people on Wednesday, as emergency workers raced to rescue people still trapped inside.The fire broke out around 3:30 p.m. local time in Xinyu, a city in Jiangxi Province, in the basement of a building that housed an internet cafe on the ground floor and an educational center upstairs, according to Chinese state media and a local government announcement.A video posted on social media by the Communist Party-affiliated outlet Beijing News showed thick black smoke billowing out of windows.Other videos posted by social media users on Wednesday, of what appeared to be the same building, showed people jumping from upper floors to a mattress on the ground outside, and a boy climbing down a ladder, wearing a backpack.At least nine people were injured, and after 8 p.m., rescue workers were still searching for people inside, according to a post by China Central Television, the state broadcaster, on the social media platform Weibo.In response to the fire, Xi Jinping, China’s top leader, called for “deep reflection” on the tragedy’s cause, state media said. He noted that this was “yet another major production safety accident that has happened recently.”On Friday, a fire at a kindergarten and elementary school dorm in central China’s Henan Province killed 13 people. While the state broadcaster did not identify the victims of that fire, some state-affiliated news media said that they had been in the same third-grade class.A fire at a mall in Xinyu also killed two people in late December.Research was contributed by More

Donald J. Trump made history with a second straight victory, while President Biden is cruising to renomination.With only two contests under his belt, Donald J. Trump has already knocked out all of his major primary challengers except one, Nikki Haley. And her chances for changing the trajectory of the race look slim given the former president’s dominance over the Republican Party.On the Democratic side, President Biden wasn’t even on the ballot in New Hampshire, after the state refused to comply with a new Democratic nominating calendar that made South Carolina the party’s first primary contest. Yet a scrappy write-in campaign run by the president’s allies delivered a victory for him nonetheless.How much have you been paying attention to the presidential campaign? Do you discuss it with your friends and family or in school? What’s your reaction to the race so far?In “5 Takeaways From the New Hampshire Primary,” The New York Times writes:The much-fabled power of New Hampshire’s fiercely independent voters wasn’t enough to break the spell Donald J. Trump has cast over the Republican Party.Brushing aside Nikki Haley a little over a week after he steamrolled her and Ron DeSantis in Iowa, Mr. Trump became the first Republican presidential candidate who was not a White House incumbent to carry the nation’s first two contests. His winning margin of 11 percentage points in moderate New Hampshire demonstrated his ironclad control of the party’s hard-right base and set him on what could very well be a short march to the nomination.For Ms. Haley, the former South Carolina governor, it was a disappointing finish in a state she had poured considerable resources into carrying. Her efforts to cobble together a coalition of independents and anti-Trump Republicans, with support from the state’s popular governor, were no match for Mr. Trump’s legions of loyalists.Even though Ms. Haley is vowing to fight on, the difficult terrain ahead in South Carolina means that this first-in-the-nation primary could turn out to be the last.The reporters cite five takeaways, which they explain in more detail in the article:Mr. Trump demonstrated his command of the Republican Party in a purple state.Ms. Haley has an incredibly rocky road ahead.The old guard of the G.O.P. is a dwindling faction.Mr. Biden, Democratic grumbling aside, is cruising to renomination.Mr. Trump’s strength may not translate to the general election.Students, read the entire article and then tell us:Have you been paying attention to the contests in Iowa and New Hampshire? Did you watch any of the Republican debates? What is your reaction to the primaries so far?Do you have a favorite candidate? Is there an issue or issues you feel particularly strongly about this election? Explain.Do you have any predictions about what is likely to happen in the presidential race in the coming months?How do you feel about a possible rematch between Mr. Biden and Mr. Trump for the 2024 presidential election in November?Do you think the 2024 presidential race is an important one? Do you think it will have a big impact on you, your family and your community? Why?Students 13 and older in the United States and Britain, and 16 and older elsewhere, are invited to comment. All comments are moderated by the Learning Network staff, but please keep in mind that once your comment is accepted, it will be made public and may appear in print.Find more Student Opinion questions here. Teachers, check out this guide to learn how you can incorporate these prompts into your classroom. More

New Hampshire was Nikki Haley’s best opportunity to change the trajectory of the race. She didn’t.Is the Republican presidential primary over already?Not quite, but it’s a reasonable question after New Hampshire’s first-in-the-nation primary delivered a clear victory for Donald Trump last night. And if your definition of “over” is whether Trump is now on track to win without a serious contest, the answer is probably “yes.”With nearly all the counting done, he won 55 percent of the vote. His only remaining rival, Nikki Haley, won 43 percent.Trump’s 12-point margin of victory is not extraordinarily impressive in its own right. In fact, he won by a smaller margin than many pre-election polls suggested.What makes Trump’s victory so important — and what raises the question about whether the race is over — is that New Hampshire was Haley’s best opportunity to change the trajectory of the race. It was arguably her best opportunity to win a state, period.If she couldn’t win here, she might not be able to win anywhere — not even in her home state of South Carolina, where the race turns next. And even if she did win her home state, she would still face a daunting path forward.Trump leads the national polls by more than 50 percentage points with just six weeks to go until Super Tuesday, when nearly half of all the delegates to the Republican convention will be awarded. Without an enormous shift, he would secure the nomination in mid-March.Haley’s best chanceWhy was New Hampshire such an excellent opportunity for her?The polls: New Hampshire was the only state where the polls showed her within striking distance. She trailed by a mere 15 points in the state, compared with her 50-plus-point deficit nationwide. She isn’t within 30 points in any other state, including her home state of South Carolina.History: The state has a long track record of backing moderate and mainstream Republican candidates, including John McCain and Mitt Romney. Trump won the state with 35 percent of the vote in 2016, but mostly because the moderate vote was divided.The electorate: Haley fares best among college graduates and moderates, and the New Hampshire electorate is full of those voters. The state ranks eighth in the college-educated share of the population, and unlike in many states, unaffiliated voters are allowed to participate in the Republican primary.The media: New Hampshire’s first-in-the-nation primary receives far more media attention than later contests. It offered the possibility — if only a faint one — that a win could change her fortunes elsewhere.Haley made good on all of these advantages yesterday. She won 74 percent of moderates, according to the exit polls, along with 58 percent of college graduates and 66 percent of voters who weren’t registered Republicans.Conservative votesBut it wasn’t close to enough. Haley lost Republicans by a staggering 74 percent to 25 percent — an important group in a Republican primary. Conservatives gave Trump a full 70 percent of the vote. Voters without a college degree backed Trump by 2 to 1.In other Republican primaries, numbers like these will yield a rout. Conservatives, Republicans and voters without a degree will represent a far greater share of the electorate. There is no credible path for her to win the nomination of a conservative, working-class party while falling this short among conservative, working-class voters.Worse, Haley’s strength among independents and Democrats will make it even harder for her to expand her appeal, as Trump and other Republicans will depict her campaign as a liberal Trojan horse.If Haley had won New Hampshire, the possibility of riding the momentum into later states and broadening her appeal would have remained. Not anymore. Instead, it’s Trump who has the momentum. He has gained nationwide in polls taken since the Iowa caucuses. Even skeptical Republican officials who were seen as Haley’s likeliest allies, like Tim Scott or Marco Rubio, have gotten behind the former president in recent days.Whether the race is “over” or not, the New Hampshire result puts Trump on a comfortable path to the nomination. If he’s convicted of a crime, perhaps he’ll lose the nomination at the convention. But by the usual rules of primary elections, there’s just not much time for the race to change. If it doesn’t, Trump could easily sweep all 50 states.Related: “It is now clear that Donald Trump will be the Republican nominee,” President Biden said in a statement. “The stakes could not be higher.”More on the Republican primaryTrump called Haley an “impostor” who “had a very bad night” and urged her to drop out. “I don’t get too angry, I get even,” he added.Haley vowed to continue through the South Carolina primary next month. She said the race was “far from over” and challenged Trump to a debate. Read about her options.The old guard of Republicans — families like the Bushes and Romneys as well as Wall Street donors — have become largely irrelevant. See more takeaways from the race.Watch a video of Shane Goldmacher, a Times political reporter, explaining what happened in the primary.Most New Hampshire Republican primary voters said Trump would be fit for the presidency even if he were convicted, The Washington Post reports.A woman with an RV full of Trump merchandise and a man with Trump tattooed on his calf: The Concord Monitor profiled Trump supporters in New Hampshire.More on the Democratic primaryBiden won New Hampshire’s Democratic primary, despite not being on the ballot, after his allies organized a write-in campaign.Dean Phillips, a Democratic congressman who campaigned heavily there, placed second.Biden criticized Trump at a rally for abortion rights, calling him “the person most responsible for taking away this freedom in America.”CommentaryTrump isn’t a sitting president, but he “is functionally an incumbent and voters are reacting to him as such,” Josh Kraushaar of Jewish Insider posted on social media.“The battle is now between the former president and the current one,” The Washington Post’s Karen Tumulty writes. “The slog between now and November will be long and grim and bitter.”Still, the New Hampshire results were close enough to suggest “that we were only a few what-ifs away from a more competitive campaign,” Ross Douthat argues in a Times Opinion column.“Trump’s attempts to dismiss Haley might serve to make her more committed to staying in,” Monica Potts of FiveThirtyEight writes.Late night hosts processed the primary.THE LATEST NEWSIsrael-Hamas WarIsraeli forces said a blast that killed around 20 troops came after militants fired on them while they were demolishing a neighborhood to create a buffer between Gaza and Israel. The U.S. opposes a buffer zone.Palestinian detainees recounted being stripped and beaten by Israeli forces. A U.N. office has said Israel’s treatment of Gazan detainees might amount to torture.U.S. forces again struck the Houthis in Yemen as well as other Iran-linked militias in Iraq.The war has given the Houthis an international audience for their anti-American and anti-Israeli message. Read how the Houthis became an effective militia.InternationalTurkey’s Parliament approved Sweden’s bid to join NATO, leaving Hungary as the lone holdout.In Colombia, gangs are targeting foreign men on dating apps. Dates drug the men so accomplices can rob them.Archaeologists found remnants of sprawling ancient cities in the Amazon.PoliticsSenator Bob Menendez, a New Jersey Democrat facing corruption charges, said the F.B.I. “ransacked” his home in a 2022 search that found gold bars and half a million dollars in cash.Lawmakers in at least 10 states — including Vermont — have introduced or are planning bills to tax wealth. (Separately, more than 250 billionaires and millionaires recently asked world leaders to tax them more, Quartz reports.)Other Big StoriesSan Diego on Monday.Ariana Drehsler for The New York TimesIn San Diego, heavy rainfall shut highways, swept away cars and damaged homes.See how manufacturing or installation flaws could have allowed a panel to fall off a Boeing jet, leaving a hole mid-flight.A New York man was convicted of murder for shooting a woman in a car that mistakenly pulled into his driveway.OpinionsBenny Gantz, a centrist former general who has argued that Netanyahu has damaged Israel, could become his replacement. Anshel Pfeffer has a profile.The growing practice of “swatting” public officials — using false emergency calls to draw armed police to their homes — threatens American democracy, Barbara McQuade writes.The allegations against District Attorney Fani Willis jeopardize her case against Trump. She should step aside, Clark Cunningham argues.Here are columns by Bret Stephens on Gaza’s tunnels and Thomas Edsall on Trump.MORNING READSSan Giovanni Lipioni, Italy.Gianni Cipriano for The New York TimesSan Giovanni Lipioni: A small Italian town has the oldest average population in an aging nation. It’s trying to lure new residents.An eternal question, answered: How much potato must a chip contain?Rise and dine: Not a morning person? These 24 recipes could help you get out of bed.Look up: Walking with your face buried in a smartphone affects your mood — and your stride.Lives Lived: Charles Osgood hosted “CBS Sunday Morning” for 22 years. But his passion was radio, where he told unconventional stories in unconventional ways, often in rhyme. Osgood died at 91.SPORTSN.B.A.: The Milwaukee Bucks shocked the league by firing their head coach, Adrian Griffin, just 43 games into his tenure, which he finished 30-13. The former Celtics and Sixers coach Doc Rivers is a leading candidate to replace him.Baseball: Adrián Beltré, Todd Helton and Joe Mauer were elected to the Hall of Fame, the organization announced.A unique donation: The former Ohio State quarterback C.J. Stroud, who now plays for the Houston Texans, gave a large sum directly to the school’s name, image and likeness collective, the first publicly known contribution of the sort.ARTS AND IDEAS Ryan Gosling, Margot Robbie and Greta Gerwig.Warner Bros.The race begins: Christopher Nolan’s “Oppenheimer” leads the Oscars pack this year, with 13 nominations. “Barbie” earned eight, including for best picture — though its director, Greta Gerwig, and star, Margot Robbie, were notably overlooked. The best picture nominees are an eclectic mix, with foreign films — “Zone of Interest” and “Anatomy of a Fall” — alongside smaller independent movies like “Poor Things” and “The Holdovers,” and epics like Martin Scorsese’s “Killers of the Flower Moon.”See the full list of Oscar nominees.More on cultureThe Los Angeles Times, losing money, is laying off more than 20 percent of its journalists.A fire in Abkhazia, a Russian-backed breakaway region of Georgia, destroyed thousands of paintings.THE MORNING RECOMMENDS …Ryan Liebe for The New York TimesSimmer cherry tomatoes and raw pasta to make this one-pot spaghetti.Try a power-building workout.Improve your meal prep.GAMESHere is today’s Spelling Bee. Yesterday’s pangram was toothpick.And here are today’s Mini Crossword, Wordle, Sudoku and Connections.Thanks for spending part of your morning with The Times. See you tomorrow.Sign up here to get this newsletter in your inbox. Reach our team at [email protected]. More

Asthaa Chaturvedi, Alex Stern and Rachel Quester and Marion Lozano and Listen and follow The DailyApple Podcasts | Spotify | Amazon MusicOn Tuesday, Donald J. Trump beat Nikki Haley in New Hampshire. His win accelerated a push for the party to coalesce behind him and deepened questions about the path forward for Ms. Haley, his lone remaining rival.Jonathan Weisman, a political correspondent for The Times, discusses the real meaning of the former president’s victory.On today’s episodeJonathan Weisman, a political correspondent for The New York Times.The former president’s victories in Iowa last week and in New Hampshire on Tuesday leave his main Republican rival, Nikki Haley, with an uphill battle.Doug Mills/The New York TimesBackground readingDonald Trump’s win in New Hampshire added to an air of inevitability, even as Nikki Haley sharpened the edge of her rhetoric.Here are five takeaways from the New Hampshire primary.There are a lot of ways to listen to The Daily. Here’s how.We aim to make transcripts available the next workday after an episode’s publication. You can find them at the top of the page.The Daily is made by Rachel Quester, Lynsea Garrison, Clare Toeniskoetter, Paige Cowett, Michael Simon Johnson, Brad Fisher, Chris Wood, Jessica Cheung, Stella Tan, Alexandra Leigh Young, Lisa Chow, Eric Krupke, Marc Georges, Luke Vander Ploeg, M.J. Davis Lin, Dan Powell, Sydney Harper, Mike Benoist, Liz O. Baylen, Asthaa Chaturvedi, Rachelle Bonja, Diana Nguyen, Marion Lozano, Corey Schreppel, Rob Szypko, Elisheba Ittoop, Mooj Zadie, Patricia Willens, Rowan Niemisto, Jody Becker, Rikki Novetsky, John Ketchum, Nina Feldman, Will Reid, Carlos Prieto, Ben Calhoun, Susan Lee, Lexie Diao, Mary Wilson, Alex Stern, Dan Farrell, Sophia Lanman, Shannon Lin, Diane Wong, Devon Taylor, Alyssa Moxley, Summer Thomad, Olivia Natt, Daniel Ramirez and Brendan Klinkenberg.Our theme music is by Jim Brunberg and Ben Landsverk of Wonderly. Special thanks to Sam Dolnick, Paula Szuchman, Lisa Tobin, Larissa Anderson, Julia Simon, Sofia Milan, Mahima Chablani, Elizabeth Davis-Moorer, Jeffrey Miranda, Renan Borelli, Maddy Masiello, Isabella Anderson and Nina Lassam. More